Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Renathras]

...

I suppose I can give you ONE more reply before I exit:

1) Old SMN had "a set amount of spells you can cast", too. You only have so many GCDs in a minute/encounter (if you're talking about rate/number of spell casts). Old SMN couldn't magically get more. Likewise, Old SMN didn't have an infinite number of abilities (in case you meant there was no limit on how many it could cast), and many of those had CDs attached preventing endless use of them; it also had a finite spellbook itself, even if it was larger. Like Old SMN, New SMN can alter its spell cast order to try and optimize situations. The optimization IS LESS, but it's NOT zero.

2) I'm not "bending the term". You "won't bother" because you don't have a counter but are trying to dodge without having to address that your original point was indefensible. No, I didn't "know what you meant". Your description of what "meaningful choice" would be was a toggle, and my point that literally no Job in the game has that is accurate and something you couldn't counter. It's possible the Devs COULD add that in the future (for example, giving RDM a toggle to where melee strikes built up Mana instead of consuming it, so you used a melee playstyle instead of a caster one), but at present, that doesn't exist in any form, for any Job, in the current combat system/model that FFXIV has. I'm stating what I meant by the term AND how NO JOB meets your extremely specific example, and further, how New SMN meets it as well as most other Jobs (the ones that do have flex/choice, anyway). When someone says they won't engage a position, it's almost always because they CAN'T defeat it and are trying to save face/gracefully decline admitting they don't have a counter to it.

3) See 2. Also, so you know, saying something isn't true but not providing an argument for why isn't an argument, and likely isn't a statement of fact.

4) This was just as true of Old SMN, then. "Oh, you rarely need more than a single Swiftcast worth of movement". Okay then, you just defeated your entire argument that Old SMN was fantastic in this respect by saying it literally never matters.

5) I also played "enough of both" to know how they work. It's not a "night and day" argument - as shown by your inability to actually offer a counter to it. I actually explained in depth HOW they were similar, while you gave no explanation for how they were not. No, they are not "night and day" different. They are similar, but New SMN is a much more limited/toned down variation on the theme. In other words: Exactly what I argued above.

6) The rework is QUITE ALRIGHT. It has no serious problem with rigidity, and it's neither braindead nor would that be a problem even if it were. EW SMN is very satisfying and fun to play at its core, and needs no serious changes. Not every Job needs to have a high skill ceiling (or low skill floor, for that matter). Your complains are hyperbolic and misguided. You liked Old SMN and want New SMN to be turned into Old SMN. That's not an argument against New SMN, it's an argument against removing Old SMN from the game - a position I actually do agree with - and lashing out at New SMN as the misplaced target of your ire.

Which is why, of course, I can't convince you otherwise, and won't try further.

You're mad because a thing you liked was taken away, so you're making hyperbolic and ridiculous arguments against something new that is, in vacuum/on its own, perfectly fine. Instead of admitting it's fine, it's just not what you like, you're trying to insist that it isn't fine itself, when it actually is.

But, again, I won't press further, since there's no way I can convince you to realize that, and there's no point in even trying.